Huge thanks to Ben and all our fantastic co-authors (‪@adelineharant.bsky.social @mpcontreras.bsky.social @Liang-Yu Hou @Chih-Hang Wu ‪@kamounlab.bsky.social‬) who made this story possible.
Here’s that amazing movie by Ben again!
9/10

Our model: Once activated, dissociated NRC protomers assemble in a stepwise manner to form a full hexameric resistosome. AVRcap1b blocks this process, capturing NRC assembly intermediates and relocating them via the TOL-ESCRT pathway.
Effector biology rocks! #EffectorWisdom
8/10

Remember TOL? How does it bind to AVRcap1b compared to SlNRC3? Turns out, they bind to opposite interfaces on AVRcap1b! This supports a dual-targeting mechanism, with the effector linking ‘immune suppression’ to ‘membrane trafficking’
🧊 SlNRC3–AVRcap1b (cryoEM)
🧬 AVRcap1b–TOL (PDB:9RDC)
7/10

It turns out we could use AVRcap1b as a molecular trap to capture other NRC assembly intermediates. One AVRcap1b truncation captured an SlNRC3 assembly intermediate with four protomers.
Cool! NRC resistosomes assemble in a stepwise process!
6/10

Through its L-shaped structure, AVRcap1b sterically blocks the SlNRC3 resistosome by forming contacts with three protomers (half the hexameric resistosome)!
5/10

What’s this intriguing complex? Together with Ben, we purified the AVRcap1b-SlNRC3 complex from our favourite plant—the Aussie wonder Nicotiana benthamiana aka benthi—and resolved this beautiful cryo-EM structure and see how AVRcap1b wraps around three SlNRC3 protomers!
4/10

What sort of complex does AVRcap1b form with activated NRCs? Blue Native-PAGE assays revealed an intermediate complex. Instead of the expected NRC hexamer, we saw an intriguing smaller band that contains both tomato NRC3 and Phytophthora AVRcap1b 🤔
3/10

🚨 New @biorxivpreprint alert! 🚨
We are thrilled to share our latest findings—building on our earlier work on suppressors of helper NLRs of the NRC family—a Phytophthora infestans L-shaped effector captures resistosome assembly intermediates of tomato NRC3!
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
1/10